The First Ski Of The Year

We all jumped in the jeep on Tuesday and headed up to Gréolieres for a morning’s skiing. We, (sorry J), had originally planned a mulled wine and minced pie thingie but as the snow is exceptional at the moment and the forecast had been good, we decided that we could not miss the opportunity to take advantage of the conditions. Quite a group of us had planned to go, both skiers and non-skiers. The non-skiers would come up slightly later and we’d all meet in the restaurant and have a long, lunch.

The weather was perfect as we set off, skis on the roof rack and mountains of boots, poles and other assorted paraphernalia in the boot. Unfortunately, Shadow could not accompany us as he’s not allowed on the slopes for obvious reasons and he sat there with that sad look on his face as we all piled into the car and left the drive. ‘Guard, kill’, were his usual instructions which means he’ll just go and lie in his bed on the terrace all day.

The snow was exceptional and even with the kids now on holiday the queues were not too bad. The pistes were empty as we got on our first chairlift heading for the first run of the season. Will your legs still know what to do? Will your edges hold on that first turn? Will you still have the courage to do that first shush? Will you still be able to do a racing stop at the chairlift queue or will you take everybody out?

I’m pleased to say that everything worked out fine although I seemed to be the only person on old ‘long’ skis – I MUST change them.

The weather was fantastic. There was this remarkable thing that as the chairlift left the station, a warm current of air gradually became stronger and warmer as the lift progressed up the slope. It was amazing. And when you got to the top, the views over the Riviera coastline were incredible – we could even see Corsica in the distance.

Photographs were taken. Snicker bars were handed out. Admonishments given to the children for trying to ‘wipe out’ French pensioners who only ski because it’s free and then the wipe out of all wipe outs as Kitty came hurtling down the slope, lost control, nearly hit a fencepost and then flew about 10 feet like Wonderwoman, face first into deep snow. Hilarious.

Lunch beckoned and we had the remaining few sandwiches the bar had left. Strangely, they had plenty of wine to sell but few sandwiches – why is that?

The non-skiers went sledging and J and I just sat in the sun having a few glasses of wine, the odd coffee and the remaining snickers bars. It was a terrific day.     

The picture was taken from the top of one of the lifts. From this vantage point you can see virtually the whole Riviera coastline from St Tropez to Italy with Corsica in the distance. 

Happy Xmas Everyone

To all my readers and fellow bloggers …. I hope you all have a wonderful Xmas and a terrific 2009. I hope you all get a chance to spend quality time with your families and friends. 2008 was a good year for me – I hope it was for you also.

What Xmas means to me……

1.  Opening the first present on Xmas Eve and then looking forward to opening the rest on Xmas morning.

2.  Getting a roaring log fire on even though it might be sunny outside – it makes the house seem more welcoming

3.  Putting Mariah Carey’s Xmas DVD on and dancing round the house.

4.  Fighting with J to see who will cook the turkey.

5.  Watching any videos/dvds which the kids got for Xmas.

6.  Giving the cats and Shadow their Xmas presents – they seem to know what’s happening.

7.  Having friends over for a drink or two or three.

8.  Having a really good bottle of red wine with lunch.

9.  Phoning my family and friends – especially my sons and my brother.

10.    Turkey sandwiches on Xmas Day evening in front of the telly.

11.  Watching some of the Xmas specials on TV.

 And finally. Thinking of those who are less fortunate than ourselves and to whom Xmas is just another day.

Oh Brother

Us bloggers stick together you know. We have to. We’re all quiet little wallflowers who wouldn’t say ‘boo’ to a goose and therefore we write our postings to get our messages and thoughts out without fear of anybody taking issue with us in person.

But then of course we sometimes meet our readers and we get it – full in the face. ‘Crap’, ‘Boring’, ‘Too Long’, ‘Too personal’ …….and these are the comments I can put in print! But I don’t care. I really don’t. The blogs are for me (to keep me cerebrally active) and for my family so they can see what I’m up to without having to resort to daily phone calls, but even then, my family can be cruel. My eldest son, Stephen, is very complimentary, says it is one of the first things he does each day (reads my blog – good job he works for his mother !) and then you have my brother who says it is ‘absolute *****’ but as he’s only just learnt to read, I suppose his comments are only to be expected.

I was reading yesterday’s posting of a fellow blogger, Allison,  (I use the word ‘fellow’ in a literal sense as she’s quite a delightful girl judging by her picture and her postings) who was both celebrating and moaning about the festive seasonal visit of her brother Pat who, crime of crimes, ate all the left-over Pizza which made me think of my brother Robert.

Only last night, as the whole family sat on the sofa in front of a roaring log fire watching Mama Mia and singing along with the words, J said, ‘Ohhhhh I wish Robert could be with us this Xmas’. ‘What prompted this outpouring of family longing was his slushy, pink, feminine looking Xmas card which had arrived earlier in the day, addressed to ‘Mrs T Cupples’, and which made only a passing reference to the other members of the family including myself – his only brother!  As J bemoaned the news that her relatively new brother-in-law would not be visiting this Xmas, I celebrated the fact by manipulating my misshapen knuckle which unfortunately was broken into several pieces when my fist accidentally hit his head quite a few years ago! I also thought of the scar on his temple which is the exact replica of a Hornby Dublo curved section of railway track which I threw at him one day and which, most unfortunately, stuck in his skull! I can still see that section of model railway track arcing through the air and sticking in his head – ha!

But don’t think this is a one-way-street. He’s had plenty of opportunities to get his own back, the most recent being when we went for a haircut the morning after we’d had a ‘boys night out’ in Paisley (see post of 18^th Oct). Needless to say, and given that we’d only crawled into bed about 3am,, arriving at the hair salon at 9am was a bit ambitious….but we made it. I knew Robert had told the girl who owned the salon that I was his brother but that was that. We arrived and the owner immediately came up to me and said in a very slow speaking voice, ‘oh… you …. must ….. be … Thomas. It’s …. sooooooo ….. nice to meet you Thomas. Here – we have a lovely big leather armchair over here. Would you like to sit in that nice big chair Thomas?’

Now I was still pretty well-oiled from the night before but even I could work out that something wasn’t quite right here. The owner continued, ‘now be a good boy Thomas and sit here whilst I get you a drink. Would you like a nice glass of lemonade?’ Lemonade ? Lemonade ? What happened to the mug of coffee I was told to expect, but I let it go and accepted my lemonade. She continued…..’now Robert says you like your hair nice and short Thomas. You sit here, nice and still and we’ll give you a nice short haircut. That’s a good boy.

I was now thinking something was amiss but as I was still inebriated, I let it go. No point in embarrassing myself. Then the clippers came right up the back of my head and right over the top. Although a bit blurry in the mirror, I could see a follicle massacre taking place here, but again I was too hung over to bother. Anyway, the haircut (???) ended and I was helped out of the chair. The owner said I had been a ‘very good boy’ and I could come back sometime and she’d make sure I’d get the big leather chair again. I was still thinking about this stupid infantile language she was using but put it down to the fact that we were in a rather outlying bit of Glasgow where in-breeding is the norm, but I mentioned it to my brother as we left the salon.

He laughed uncontrollably and said he’d told the owner that his brother (me !!!) had been in an institution since the age of five, had had a terrible illness which gave him a mental age of seven years old and that he knew very little of what was going on around him. Everything which had happened for the last 30 minutes fell perfectly into place. Touché.    

Oh Deer Oh Deer

When we moved into our previous house next door, about ten years ago, we, or rather I (as I am the jardinerie – gardener), immediately started putting in plants to soften the landscape of what was otherwise a neglected former holiday home. The garden centres did a roaring trade as I bought all manner of bushes and trees, most of which turned out to be unsuitable for a sun-drenched, south-facing garden. Even Mediterranean garden books did not help me with the correct choices as they were quite generalistic and probably assumed we all had automatic watering systems. One day forgetting to water the plants and a shrivelled, dried-up mess resulted. It was quite dispiriting but gradually, and after spending more than I care to estimate, I worked out where certain plants should be placed and greenery started to grow and spread in all the right directions. After planting the terraces, I bought the final two pieces of the horticultural jigsaw for the front of the house – two large terracotta pots with magnificent hydrangeas in them. I looked at them from the upper terraces before I finished for the night, happy with the final part of what had been six months hard work.

The next morning, as I went to the garage I passed my hydrangeas and gave them another admiring glance. Quel horreur – there were just two mangled stumps. Every leaf and flower had gone. J immediately stated that the culprits were deer. They roam wild in the hills behind our house and although you rarely see them, the hunters wouldn’t spend so much time shooting up there if it wasn’t worth their while. I was pretty annoyed, more with the wasted expenditure than anything else but reckoned it was a small price to pay to live in an area where you get deer coming to the front door – at 2am!

Ten years pass without any more of my plants being used as sustenance and then this year, I embarked on a major gardening exercise for the new house. A couple of thousand euros worth of bushes and trees in an attempt to turn a new modern, provencal style house into something more Mediterranean with Cyprus and Mimosa trees, Oleanders and various all-year flowering bushes. Work done, I looked forward to next summer when the greenery would have established itself and the scars of last year’s building works would be well hidden.

And then this morning, I looked out of my office window and couldn’t see the mimosa tree I had planted on the second terrace. It had gone. I just couldn’t understand it. I went to investigate and there was the tell-tale sign of a deer taking a liking to the bark of my tree. Branches and leaves had been ripped off systematically and discarded and then the bark had been stripped off almost as if the creature had used a giant potato peeler. That was bad enough but as I wandered back across the parking area I came across my favourite, and most expensive by a mile, Cyprus tree, totally shredded in the middle of it’s trunk. I was livid for all of about ten minutes until I remembered coming across a couple of deer in the lane a few months ago, totally magnificent as they looked at me for a few seconds before charging off into the undergrowth and back up into the hills.

They were living here long before I was – it’s their place – not mine.

  

A Rather Sociable Weekend

Well I have to say that I was glad when Sunday night arrived and I was able to catch up with my sleep after a rather sociable and over-indulgent weekend.

It started on Friday lunchtime with the South of France BT Xmas Lunch. Much planning had gone into the venue for this annual extravaganza. Should we go down to Mougins, the gastronomic capital of the area with fabulous restaurants on every corner? Should we hit Monaco and try the 3-star Michelin restaurant of Alain Ducasse ? We could even bomb down to Cannes to try the Martinez or Nice to lunch in the Negresco. In the end, we went to Grasse for a curry.

What a gastronomic comedown. I suppose it (the curry) was ok-ish. Not bad for a curry created in France but not a patch on the one I had the previous Tuesday in London but then again, London has more curry restaurants than Bombay (or Mumbai as it’s now called), so it’s curry creations should be good. Much wine accompanied the meal and as I was being driven there and back by my mate Ashley, I rather over-imbibed. No problem, I had the rest of Friday to recover.

Later on that evening as I lay slumped on the sofa trying to work out how to work the TV remote, the phone went. J had popped next door to see the neighbours, Tan and Angie and this was Angie on the blower saying that Tan and J were having a love-in and that she was feeling left out. I stumbled the 20 yards to their house to find Tan and J mutually complementing each other on their respective weight loss programmes (about 30 kilos between them) and comparing the gaps between their waists and their trousers. It was pathetic. Angie, who is pregnant and putting on weight and who probably felt a bit left out of this mutual celebration,  poured me the first of several large glasses of wine, produced some pizza and a good night was had by all. I think!  

Saturday morning was rather hazy. My head, not the weather. There was nothing for it but to get my logging tools out and cut up a few tree trunks. This exercise sorted me out and got me ready for Saturday night’s party at Mike and Lesley’s. Their place is only about 3 minutes away and as soon as we arrived, yet more white wine found its way into my hands. Mike, the host, explained that the first glass would be served by him but after that, it was every man for himself – just what I wanted to hear. There was quite an eclectic mix of people there, most of whom I knew and I managed to beat all expectations and behave myself until about 1am when I started to ‘accost’ my good friend, the Reverend Anne Naylor. I noticed that as I attempted to make her less saintly she didn’t exactly run away! J dragged me off but unfortunately got me another glass of wine which only served to cause more mayhem as I decided that the hostess could do with her armpits being cleaned with baby wipes which was probably ok until I started to eat them and hang them on the Xmas tree. Needless to say that on Sunday morning I had totally forgotten the escapades of the previous evening but couldn’t work out what the strange taste in my mouth was!

After two nights of decadence, there was only one thing for it. I needed to cleanse my soul so I went to church with J. You’ll all be pleased to hear that I refused the communion wine!!!!      

The picture is of J who couldn't last the pace either. Sunday morning - she didn't even take her clothes off from the night before!